1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of golf clubs used in practicing the sport of the same name.
More particularly, the invention relates to a series of golf clubs of which each head includes in particular at least one front face used to strike the ball, and one bottom face.
Still more particularly, the invention relates to a series of golf clubs in which certain characteristics of these faces evolve within this series.
2. Discussion of Background and Material Information
The game of golf consists of using a series of golf clubs to drive a ball into a hole located quite a distance from a starting point of the game.
In the great majority of cases, the golfer has to hit the ball several times along the fairway.
To that end, he will use different clubs, selected from the series he uses, whose characteristics tend to improve the playing quality.
The starting club, generally called a driver, makes it possible to drive the ball quite far away from a flat zone called the tee. The intermediate clubs, which are woods, wood-metal clubs, or irons, make it possible to come closer to the hole. Finally, the last clubs, called putters, are used in the immediate proximity of the hole, in a zone called the green.
Because of the various types of terrain encountered, except on the green, it becomes necessary to use clubs in which the inclination of the striking face is increasingly pronounced, the closer the player gets to the hole, since a preferential lofting of the ball must be assured. These various terrains, which may be high grass, dirt, sand or other kinds, present additional difficulties to the player.
These difficulties are more easily overcome if the head of the club presents reduced resistance to friction when the head passes over the ground in the course of the swing.
To that end, the prior art has proposed heads of golf clubs whose bottom face or sole has a reduced surface area in contact with the ground.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,240,252 to Callaway discloses the structure of a golf club head whose sole is hollowed out by concave lateral cavities.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,868,286 to Grieve and U.S. Pat. No. 1,619,566 to Crankshaw each show a golf club head sole in the form of the letter T, with one rib adjacent to the striking face and a central rib perpendicular to the first.
All these references relate to heads that touch the ground only with relief-type portions of their sole.
However, the various known heads do not enable assembling a series in which each head has a reduced area of contact with the ground while preserving good stability in addressing the ball.